Scooters Arrived and Cities Scrambled. Now We Have the Data.
When Lime launched the world's first shared scooter service in Santa Monica in July 2017, cities had no idea what was coming. By 2019, 88.5 million scooter trips were completed in the US alone — a 130% increase in a single year. Regulators, planners, and operators were flying blind.
This study changes that. By analyzing approximately nine million trips across Austin, Calgary, Chicago, Louisville, and Minneapolis — covering everything from weather's effect on ridership to which neighborhoods people scoot through — researchers at TU Munich and UCL have built the most comprehensive cross-city picture of e-scooter use to date.
Five Cities, Wildly Different — Yet Strangely Alike
The researchers chose cities deliberately distinct in size, climate, and transit infrastructure. Chicago has 2.7 million people and world-class public transit; Louisville has 620,000 and a transit share of just 4%. Yet once scooters hit the streets, the patterns converged.
Austin is the longest-running dataset, spanning April 2018 to January 2020. It hosted the SXSW music festival in March 2019, which sent daily demand to 4× the normal rate — nearly 39,000 trips in a single day. Scooters are permitted on both bike lanes and sidewalks.
Calgary achieved the highest fleet utilization of any city in the study — ~4 trips per vehicle per day, compared to 1–2 elsewhere. Its 16-month pilot (July–Sep 2019 data published) shows what sustained deployment looks like. Downtown concentration on weekdays is unique, explained by multiple university campuses in the core.
Chicago has the fastest average trip speed (12 km/h vs ~9.5–10 elsewhere), and was the only city to restrict scooter use between 10pm–5am. Its transit share for work trips (28%) is nearly 6× the US average. The pilot ran June–October 2019, with declining demand as severe winter weather set in.
Louisville has the longest trip durations — likely because pricing was lower ($1 unlock + $0.15/min vs $0.33/min elsewhere). It's the only city requiring helmets. Demand patterns show a notable shift between the pilot phase and regular use: the peak hour moved from 4pm to 1pm post-pilot.
Minneapolis showed an unusual demand spike in November — doubling despite cold weather — before its pilot ended in December 2018. Uniquely, Thursday (not Friday or Saturday) showed the highest average demand. Weekend and weekday patterns were nearly indistinguishable, possibly due to coarse time-rounding in the data.
Work Trips in the Morning. Bars on Saturday Night.
One of the study's most striking findings: demand patterns are almost identical across all five cities, despite their differences. The
Morning Minor Peak (8–10am)
Cities with higher public transit use (Chicago: 28% work trips by transit; Calgary: 16%) show a clearer morning commute peak. Scooters serve as a first/last-mile solution, connecting riders to train and bus stops.
Weekend: One Peak, Later in the Day
On weekends, the bimodal pattern collapses to a single afternoon peak, and early morning (post-midnight) use increases sharply. Spatial data confirms: demand clusters around bars, restaurants, and parks — not offices.
Events 4× Normal Demand
During Austin's SXSW festival, daily scooter trips hit ~39,000 — nearly four times the average. Similar spikes appeared in Washington DC during the Cherry Blossom Festival. Operators need event-aware fleet deployment.
Campus on Tuesday. Downtown on Saturday.
The spatial story reinforces the temporal one. On weekdays, demand concentrates near universities and educational institutions. On weekends, it migrates to downtown entertainment districts, parks, and waterfronts.
In all five cities studied, scooter demand shifts from educational clusters on weekdays to leisure and nightlife districts on weekends — a pattern that held regardless of city size or climate.
The University of Texas campus in Austin, the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and the University of Louisville all generate high weekday demand. Meanwhile, Baxter Avenue (Louisville's restaurant strip), Wicker Park (Chicago), and the area around Lake Calhoun (Minneapolis) dominate weekends.
Calgary is the exception: because multiple university campuses are in the downtown core, the weekday/weekend spatial contrast is less pronounced. The logic is the same — it's just that education and entertainment share the same geography.
Demand Changes Over Time
Comparing Austin's pilot period to its regular-use phase reveals something important: early users traveled further, faster, and more broadly. With time, trips became shorter, slower, and more geographically concentrated. Researchers suggest this reflects the "novelty factor" — early adopters exploring the service — giving way to habitual, purposeful commuting behavior.
Weather Kills Demand. Transit Access Boosts It.
Using ZINB regression models across all five cities, the researchers identified factors that reliably predict how many trips an area generates on any given day.
Short, Slow, and Remarkably Consistent
The average e-scooter trip covers 1.7 km in about 11 minutes at 10 km/h. These numbers barely budge across five cities with radically different urban forms, climates, and populations.
A key finding: pilot-phase trips are longer, faster, and more exploratory than regular-use trips. As users become familiar with the service, they settle into shorter, more purposeful journeys. This has real implications: cities that evaluate a scooter pilot expecting regular-use behavior may be disappointed — or pleasantly surprised.
Chicago's speed advantage (12 km/h average) likely reflects its wide bike lanes and high cyclist culture. Louisville's longer trips may be partly explained by its lower per-minute pricing. The underlying physics of e-scooter travel, however, is highly consistent.
Evidence, Finally, for Evidence-Based Policy
The study's authors are direct: scooter regulation has too often preceded understanding. These findings offer actionable guidance for cities deploying or managing shared e-scooter services.
Synchronize Fleet with Demand — Including Events
Maintenance and redistribution should follow the bimodal weekday pattern. Weekend redistribution must cover wider areas. Special events warrant 3–4× normal fleet density in affected zones.
Invest in Transit-Scooter Integration
Higher transit accessibility drives more scooter demand — not less. Subsidizing scooter trips for transit users, or extending PT ticket validity to include micromobility, could unlock substantial modal shift away from cars.
Early Use = Higher Risk
Pilot-phase trips are faster and longer — and injury data shows accidents correlate with service unfamiliarity. Speed monitoring and user education should be most intensive in the first months of deployment.
Equity Remains Unsolved
Income positively predicts scooter use. Despite Chicago requiring operators to deploy in underserved areas, only 0.05% of trips were made by unbanked users. Cities need better monitoring — and different strategies — to make scooters truly equitable.
The Full Picture Awaits
This blog post covers the headline findings. The full paper digs into the statistical models, spatial regression outputs, and city-by-city breakdowns in rigorous detail.
Read the Full Paper →